Another month of books, another month of book covers. June was full of winks, nods, and interesting framings—here are my favorites, but as ever, feel free to add on to my list in the comments below:
Magogodi oaMphela Makhene, Innards (Norton, June 6)
It’s the look on the girl’s face, it’s the bluntness of the title by her head, it’s the chickens (obviously), it’s the way she becomes a paper doll as your eyes pass over the image, it’s the shadow, it’s the marigold.
Robert Plunket, My Search for Warren Harding; cover design by Oliver Munday (New Directions, June 6)
No book cover designer makes me laugh quite as often as Oliver Munday. This is so weird and smart and silly at the same time.
Helen Schulman, Lucky Dogs (Knopf, June 6)
Simple and compelling. The saturated black is doing a lot of work here.
Jenny Erpenbeck, tr. Michael Hofmann, Kairos; cover design by John Gall (New Directions, June 6)
You can see that this was designed by John Gall from a mile away; his beautiful eccentricities and Erpenbeck’s match perfectly.
Claire Fuller, The Memory of Animals; cover design by Beth Steidle, art by Lisa Ericson (Tin House, June 6)
This one gets weirder the longer you look at it, which is a plus in my book; it also doesn’t look like most covers these days, which also works in its favor.
Bernardo Zannoni, tr. Alex Andriesse, My Stupid Intentions (NYRB, June 13)
Another funny cover—and another perfectly simple one too.
Keziah Weir, The Mythmakers (Simon & Schuster/Marysue Rucci Books, June 13)
The layered framing is so compelling here—as is the central, ominous flower in black and white, which I have to keep reminding myself is not an insect.
Greg Marshall, Leg: The Story of a Limb and the Boy Who Grew From It; cover design by Devin Grosz (Abrams, June 13)
Just brilliant (and cheeky) interplay of text and image at every opportunity.
Jessie Gaynor, The Glow; cover design by Sarah Horgan (Random House, June 20)
I would like to lick this book cover (by Lit Hub editor Jessie Gaynor), even though I am pretty sure I shouldn’t. The dewy glow is perfectly captured and cropped, but it’s really the iridescent drip for me!
Micah Fields, We Hold Our Breath: A Journey to Texas Between Storms (Norton, June 20)
I’ve never seen a cut-out treatment quite like this before.
Veronica Raimo, tr. Leah Janeczko, Lost on Me (Black Cat, June 27)
All about the image here.
Emerson Whitney, Daddy Boy; cover design by Sunra Thompson, illustrated by Amandine Urruty (McSweeney’s, June 27)
“I hope you all like this cover as much as I do, that green is so good to me—I always try to buy clothes that are this color, honestly, and against the lettering in that style, I find myself wanting to have the book around and to hold it,” Emerson Whitney told Lit Hub. “Also, I was obsessed with images of tornadoes when I was a kid and so this rendering, in the form of a photograph, really exemplifies that craving I’ve always had and have written about here, it’s hinting at themes of adventuring, of image-making, and the complexity of ‘capturing.’” I must agree on the green.